Many voters going into this election next month believe if Biden wins the presidency, the constant disruption, chaos, and social unrest will recede because Trump will no longer be president. Some of them are actually hinging their vote on that. Those exasperated voters and every reporter who spins that reasoning are as wrong about that as they were in their belief that the 2016 election was all about Trump. It never was.
Trump was never the cause of the conservative populist coalition that put him in office. He was the result of it. After decades of voters’ dissatisfaction with both political parties, institutions, government, and culture, they voted for themselves and their communities over both party’s establishments. It wasn’t about voting for Trump.
A lot of very smart people keep missing that critical nuance.
If Trump’s opponents, or those who cover him, spent any time listening to voters and not making fun of them, categorizing them as a cult, racists, stupid, or whatever word of the day they are using to describe them, they would understand that.
I don’t mean parachuting in for a day at a diner and calling that understanding of a community. But walking in their shoes and their community’s streets to see how government has either failed them or passed their communities by. It wouldn’t hurt to stay in town for a couple of days, attend church with people, go to work with them, or watch them coach little league.
Look someone in the eyes on the very ground they walk on, and not from the bubble of your life experiences, and you might experience a little empathy.
As for Biden, despite his wistful assertion that he is going to bring this country together, anyone with a smidgen of understanding of the Democratic Party knows he will be hard-pressed to bring his own party together, let alone an entire country.
The hard and very vocal Left will demand climate change legislation, defunding or deep restructuring of our nation’s police forces, free college tuition, a $15 minimum wage, “Medicare for all,” and a restructuring of our education system to include radical lessons like the 1619 Project as part of the curriculum.
They will take their demands to social media, the streets, and to Washington until they get what they want. That is not a threat; that is just a reality. Biden is not the far-Left’s candidate, but he is the means to an end of Trump. Once elected, there is a valid expectation of a far-left reward for voting for Biden.
The moderate Democrats, independents, and suburban Republicans who may put Biden into office won’t go willingly along with sweeping government changes to satisfy activists, nor the higher taxes needed to support them. They won’t take to the streets, but they will silently move away from the coalition they decided to dip their toe in. The result will be an instantaneous shift back toward Republican candidates for the 2022 midterm elections, and the wildly swinging wave elections we’ve been experiencing since 2006 will continue.
In short, there is no exit from the roller coaster anytime soon.
The Left isn’t going to change, and neither are the Americans who refuse to be swept along by the whims and caprices of the community of fashion.